But what about Remus?
by snowhalo
Summary: Lily and James Potter are dead and Sirius Black has killed Peter Pettigrew. That leaves only one Marauder left, who didn't know any of this has happened; until the next morning, when the news arrived...


**A/N: I wrote this two years ago, so forgive me from weird and failing wordings. I tried to fix old typos and screaming errors now. All the same I really like this one and figured I could post it in here too after having nothing on this account for forever. I hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

It was a sharp tapping on the window that woke him up in the really early morning that day. First Remus Lupin thought it was just a mere sound of tree branch hitting on his window, but then it was accompanied with a high pitched shriek. Remus opened his golden brown eyes sleepily, wanting nothing more than to just go back to sleep and to that pleasant dream of his where he had been running on clouds with the rest of his Marauder friends. It was a nice dream even though he had been a werewolf form; he had been free there, free from the monster part inside of him, just running along with three Animagi. Running and playing, fooling around like the four of them used to do in Hogwarts at full moons.

But then the sharp noise had wrenched him out of the dream and the clouds had disappeared. One by one had his friends too, first James, then Sirius and then Peter, been lost in the darkness around him.

Now that he was gaping for the reason for this disturbance he realised the reason to the noise was an owl. A very annoyed looking owl with black feathers and piercing yellow eyes that was staring at his sleepy form and stabbing his window with her sharp beak. When Remus looked more closely, he saw that the owl was carrying a newspaper.

Remus glanced at the clock at his nightstand and frowned deeply. It was half past four o'clock. _In the morning! _Why that owl was delivering his newspaper to him this soon? Normally the _Daily Prophet_ came at seven a.m.

The owl shrieked at him once more, impatient to deliver the paper, so Remus forced himself up and out of bed, scrambling to the window to open it and let the annoying bird inside of his apartment. The owl dropped the newspaper at Remus' bed and whirled once around the room before shooting out of there. This added just more confusion in the situation, because Remus hadn't had time to pay the owl for the paper.

Deciding to push this weird fact out of his mind, Remus grabbed the paper from his bed and walked to his kitchen, yawning as he went. He didn't even look at the newspaper at first and just went off to make some coffee to himself. He would have wanted to go back to sleep, but he knew it would be in vain. He had never been able to get sleep when awakened like this.

So, he made coffee and with a fresh and steaming cup in front of him, Remus made his way to the table and sat down, opening the _Daily Prophet_ first time now while sipping from his cup.

He ended up spatting the coffee directly on the newspaper as he read the headline of the day from the front page. It said: "YOU-KNOW-WHO DEFEATED BY A BABY!"

Remus stared at the headline a long time, not noticing it was soaked by coffee he had spit out of his mouth mere moments ago. He didn't do anything else, just stared at it with shock and utter disbelief stamped on his face. It took nearly five minutes to him to realise that he should definitely read the article itself.

Slowly Remus lowered his gaze from the headline and started to read the front page, realising just now that there was a picture too, a picture of large house, with half of its upper floor blasted completely off. He didn't pay attention to the picture more than just glancing at it for being too busy reading the story with the weird and ridiculous headline. Had he observed the picture more, he would have realised he knew that particular house. But instead of it he started taking the words in.

"_As shocking and hard to believe it is, the Wizarding world has been relieved from the horror and fear of You-Know-Who, who, confirmed by the Ministry of Magic, is now gone for good. Even though nobody seems to know what exactly happened last night at the late evening, the basics of the story are still known already by many. Last night You-Know-Who marched by himself to the Godric's Hollow to attempt to murder again. It is clear that he wasn't there by accident when he attacked wizarding family without warning, attempting to murder the one year old son of Lily and James Potter…"_

Remus stared in utter horror at the newspaper and clenched his fist tightly into it, wrinkling the whole paper as he continued to read.

"…_but the Killing Curse he used to young Harry Potter didn't kill him as expected. The Curse bounced back at him, leaving Harry Potter alive with only a scar at his forehead, when You-Know-Who himself was hit by it and so he disappeared, leaving nothing behind. It has been confirmed by Albus Dumbledore, that You-Know-Who has been defeated and he is in fact gone. To great sorrow of all of us, young Harry was the only one surviving from the Potter household as his parent Lily and James were killed when trying to protect their only son."_

Remus stopped reading there even though the article went on. He didn't want to know what else there was written, it didn't matter. The defeat of Voldemort didn't matter. At all.

"No…" he whispered to the empty apartment, staring now at the picture of blasted house, which he now immediately recognised as Lily and James' house. They were dead. Lily and James were gone. They were gone from this world because of a monstrous creature that was Lord Voldemort, because of…

Remus froze upon realizing something. The _Fidelius Charm_! But that would mean…

"No!" He shouted and lunged back to the paper, reading the article to the very end rapidly and even bigger horror placed over his heart. But there was not even mentioning about the _Fidelius Charm_ or anything else. And then it hit him. The Ministry did not know there was the particular charm involved. They didn't know that Lily and James had had a Secret Keeper. They didn't know that the Potters had been betrayed by their best friend…

And then Remus spotted a much smaller article from the front page. It was taking only tiny space in the right corner from the bottom of the newspaper, probably because it surely was important news but a lot less than the main thing had been.

"_SIRIUS BLACK MURDERS 12 MUGGLES AND A WIZARD!"_

Remus didn't waste any time for gaping at the headline this time. Instead he started reading immediately, tears starting to drop from his eyes.

"_Sirius Black, 21, who has been considered as the opposite of his infamous pureblood family has now shown his true colours. Today at three o'clock in the morning he was cornered by no other else than Peter Pettigrew, 21, who accused him from the betrayal of the Potters. Before Pettigrew was able to do anything, Black had already destroyed half the street and killed twelve by standing Muggles and Pettigrew himself. Only a finger was found left of Pettigrew when inspected further. Black himself was found standing there and as horrifying as it sounds, laughing manically and pointing the spot where Pettigrew had moment before been. Sirius Black left with peace with the Ministry officials, laughing the whole way down when he was brought to the Azkaban prison and concealed in to one of the most high security cells Azkaban has. Ministry has informed that Black was a spy sent by You-Know-Who and went crazy after hearing his Master been defeated."_

Remus gaped at the article. He couldn't believe it. No, this couldn't be right. It couldn't be true! He suddenly threw the newspaper out of his hands in disgust. That thing was telling him that three of his best friends where dead because the one left had betrayed two and killed the remaining one, and was now concealed in Azkaban. It could not be true! Sirius couldn't be murderer and traitor, Lily, James, and Peter couldn't be dead! But somehow Remus knew that the paper wasn't lying to him. He knew it in his heart, which somebody would as well just have ripped out and stamped on, smashing it and ripping it into little, tiny pieces.

Tears were now streaming down his face freely, soaking his face and shirt fully and completely. Remus had lost all his friends. All, every single one of them was gone now and forever. Pure hatred against one of them emerged suddenly out of nowhere. Even though Remus could still not believe it completely, the evidence was clear. Sirius had been the Potters' Secret Keeper after all and the fact that he had been killing innocent lives, Peter included, mere hours after his supposedly best friend had been brutally murdered, proved it. But the hatred and sudden need for revenge weren't able to completely wash over the suspicion and feeling that something was wrong with the scenario, that everybody had missed something vital.

Amongst tears, horror, sadness, need to revenge, and hollowness that was now taking over him, Remus' thoughts were directed to the only survival of the scene; Harry. What happened to him? Where was he now that his parents were dead and his godfather was in Azkaban as a traitor?

Remus swallowed with difficulty and without sacrificing a thought to anything else he Disapparated from his flat and appeared almost immediately to Godric's Hollow, shocked by the fact that he wasn't the only one there. The place was full of witches and wizards who had come to gape at the place where Voldemort had been defeated. Rage came immediately back at the sight as Remus knew these people weren't here because of Lily and James. They all just wanted a glimpse of the newly famous house that had been on a cover of a newspaper. They didn't care. They were _happy_. They didn't sacrifice even one thought to the fact that the world was now lacking two brilliant persons, two loving, caring, brave and loyal people.

Remus was outraged. He wanted to curse every single one of these idiotic humans, who cared only about themselves and the fact that they were now seemingly safe. Remus growled out loud and screamed, gaping murderously at everybody in sight. Then he left before the people scattered outside Potter household could have opportunity to stare at him as well.

Of course, Remus knew who he had to find. He knew that he'd get all the answers from the one person and the one person only. Dumbledore. It didn't take much searching as he found him in the Ministry of Magic that was now in complete riot, people running everywhere and notes shooting throughout the place. Remus stormed to the direction he had heard somebody talking that Dumbledore would be in and ran right into the big room, paying no attention to the other witches or wizards that were there. He stared at Dumbledore who had been talking a moment before, but who had fallen silent as Remus had practically ran through the wooden door.

Remus opened his mouth to ask questions, to shout or to do _anything_ for that matter, but no sound came out. So he just stared at the man before him, not giving even a single thought to the now muttering audience he had received. First he just stared, his mouth opening and closing without a sound. Then he collapsed to the ground, tears starting to flow again and realisation hitting hard and painfully and completely to him. All he had needed as confirmation about everything was that single look from Dumbledore, full of sorrow, understanding, and pity.

Remus hit the hard stone floor and cried his soul out until he couldn't feel anything else but a simple hollowness, until there was nothing left but a shell of him, an emotionless, empty shell with a consuming and tearing pain in his heart which would never leave before he and his friends, his _family_, would be reunited after death. Until they would be running carefree and happy on the clouds, just like they had been in his dream.


End file.
